First of all, I was surprised how much I missed basketball. When the season started, I couldn’t be puled away from keeping track of the Knicks via League Pass. Whenever I got the opportunity, I would take advantage of the NBA League Pass two week free trial to watch the new Knicks. Before the season started, I had all but decided to purchase League Pass but something happened during that free trial.

It’s bad enough that beyond Tyson Chandler, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Antony, the Knicks’ roster look like a bunch of community center castoffs – always calling “next.” It’s bad enough that Mike D’Antoni’s offensive strategy appears to be shoot as many three pointers as possible (the earlier in the shot clock, the better) and when that doesn’t work, pass the ball to Will…I mean Carmelo and hope he can bail the team out (‘Melo will be dead by the All-Star break). No, Bill. You apparently traveled back in time to the 90’s, got twists put in your hair and made it back in time for the season.

Wednesday night, the Knicks got blown out by the Dallas Mavericks. They were only down by six at halftime but then Dallas destroyed them in the third quarter. I was really disappointed because I thought they could pull it off. They had beaten the Spurs and, most recently, the Heat. It’s weird caring about the Knicks again.

When the Knicks were great in the 90’s, they, along with the Yankees, were my life. I spent almost every Sunday watching the NBA on NBC looking for the next matchup versus the hated Chicago Bulls or Miami Heat. The only time I ever cried over a sporting event was when the Houston Rockets beat the Knicks in game seven of the 1994 NBA Finals (Why wouldn’t Riley put in Hubert Davis when John Starks was 2-18? WHY!?!?). As the years went on, the Knicks got worse but were still competitive. The Allan Houston years weren’t as horrible as everyone makes them out to be. He did get us to back to the Finals (taking full advantage of the strike-shortened season). But then the scourge known as Isiah Thomas and his harbinger of doom, Stephon Marbury, came to town and destroyed everything I loved about the Knicks for about a decade. At least I had the Yankees.

Sure he has a bad knee and eyes and he has a five year, $100 million contract (all five years guaranteed) but if the Knicks had left this free agency season empty-handed or overpaying for a low-tier player because they had to (which still might happen), I would have been more disappointed.

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.